Looking for the best and inspirational Ernest Hemingway quotes?
Ernest Hemingway is one of the most famous authors in the world. He was born in 1899 and died in 1961.
Hemingway lived a hard life, and his stories reflect that. His work is known for its spare, understated style and deep themes. He was an American journalist, novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter who published four novels, six nonfiction books, three short story collections, and a play. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954.
He wrote many notable novels, including “The Sun Also Rises,” “For Whom the Bell Tolls,” and “A Farewell to Arms.” He was one of the 20th century’s most famous exponents of the art of writing. He also wrote many articles that were published during his lifetime about topics such as bullfighting or fishing.
Ernest Hemingway is considered one of the 20th century’s most famous exponents of the art of writing.
Here are some of his best quotes that will inspire you. Get into these and use them to motivate yourself.
81 Inspirational Ernest Hemingway Quotes
“When you love you wish to do things for. You wish to sacrifice for. You wish to serve.”
“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”
“When you have shot one bird flying you have shot all birds flying. They are all different and they fly in different ways but the sensation is the same and the last one is as good as the first.”
“Always do sober what you said you’d do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.”
“Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.”
“The way to make people trust-worthy is to trust them.”
“The game of golf would lose a great deal if croquet mallets and billiard cues were allowed on the putting green.”
“You can’t get away from yourself by moving from one place to another.”
“Try to learn to breathe deeply, really to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep. Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell. And when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough.”
“Why do old men wake so early? Is it to have one longer day?”
“My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.”
“Courage is grace under pressure.”
“The shortest answer is doing the thing.”
“Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.”
“The hard part about writing a novel is finishing it.”
“An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.”
“I loved you when I saw you today and I loved you always but I never saw you before.”
“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”
“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”
“But life isn’t hard to manage when you’ve nothing to lose.”
“When people talk listen completely. Don’t be thinking what you’re going to say. Most people never listen.”
“But man is not made for defeat… A man can be destroyed but not defeated.”
“It’s silly not to hope. It’s a sin he thought.”
“All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since.”
“There is no rule on how to write. Sometimes it comes easily and perfectly; sometimes it’s like drilling rock and then blasting it out with charges.”
“You are so brave and quiet I forget you are suffering.”
“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and bleed.”
“There is no friend as loyal as a book.”
“It’s none of their business that you have to learn how to write. Let them think you were born that way.”
“I love sleep. My life has the tendency to fall apart when I’m awake, you know?”
“And you’ll always love me won’t you? Yes And the rain won’t make any difference? No”
“The most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, shit detector.”
“I drink to make other people more interesting.”
“Don’t you ever get the feeling that all your life is going by and you’re not taking advantage of it? Do you realize you’ve lived nearly half the time you have to live already?”
“People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”
“We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master.”
“I may not be as stong as I think, but I know many tricks and I have resolution.”
“It is awfully easy to be hard-boiled about everything in the daytime, but at night it is another thing.”
“In order to write about life first you must live it.”
“Let him think that I am more man than I am and I will be so.”
“All my life I’ve looked at words as though I were seeing them for the first time.”
“The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”
“The best people possess a feeling for beauty, the courage to take risks, the discipline to tell the truth, the capacity for sacrifice. Ironically, their virtues make them vulnerable; they are often wounded, sometimes destroyed.”
“So far, about morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.”
“Cowardice… is almost always simply a lack of ability to suspend functioning of the imagination.”
“As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.”
“If the others heard me talking out loud they would think that I am crazy. But since I am not, I do not care.”
“All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.”
“But life isn’t hard to manage when you’ve nothing to lose.”
“Worry a little bit every day and in a lifetime you will lose a couple of years. If something is wrong, fix it if you can. But train yourself not to worry: Worry never fixes anything.”
“Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.”
“It is good that we do not have to try to kill the sun or the moon or the stars. It is enough to live on the sea and kill our true brothers.”
“No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.”
“All thinking men are atheists.”
“Never mistake motion for action.”
“We’re stronger in the places that we’ve been broken.”
“Forget your personal tragedy. We are all bitched from the start and you especially have to be hurt like hell before you can write seriously. But when you get the damned hurt, use it-don’t cheat with it.”
“You know it makes one feel rather good deciding not to be a bitch.”
“Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is.”
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, many are strong at the broken places.”
“We have come out of the time when obedience, the acceptance of discipline, intelligent courage and resolution were most important, into that more difficult time when it is a person’s duty to understand the world rather than simply fight for it.”
“Never to go on trips with anyone you do not love.”
“Never confuse movement with action.”
“The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them.”
“Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.”
“Live the full life of the mind, exhilarated by new ideas, intoxicated by the Romance of the unusual.”
“That terrible mood of depression of whether it’s any good or not is what is known as The Artist’s Reward.”
“I like to listen. I have learned a great deal from listening carefully. Most people never listen.”
“All things truly wicked start from innocence.”
“The only thing that could spoil a day was people. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”
“The first and final thing you have to do in this world is to last it and not be smashed by it.”
“The world is a fine place and worth the fighting for and I hate very much to leave it.”
“Some people show evil as a great racehorse shows breeding. They have the dignity of a hard chancre.”
“Auto racing, bull fighting, and mountain climbing are the only real sports… all the others are games.”
“Why should anybody be interested in some old man who was a failure?“
“If you have a success you have it for the wrong reasons. If you become popular it is always because of the worst aspects of your work.”
“The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places.”
“I never had to choose a subject – my subject rather chose me.”
“The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too.” “Write hard and clear about what hurts.”
